I woke up a couple of hours after dawn, after a night full of strange dreams. It was hard to separate the strange reality that had happeo me from the illusions of the night. I had definitely heard a voi my head, right? That wasn’t crazy at all. And having my clothes fall off me — that wasn’t anything like a recurrent dream I’d had once. Fortunately, this time I wasn’t in the high school gym with everyone ughing.

  No, it wasn’t a dream. It either happened, or I was in a straitjacket somewhere in a mental hospital.

  I walked back to the basement. The puzzle was still on the floor, and if I moved around, I could see through it to the crypt below at different angles. I could see the mirror I’d left there, and the shattered bones of Enash’s skeleton. I was curious to explore more, and nervous about it, too.

  Either way, I wasn’t going to be any good if I did. I scrambled some eggs and fried some ba, using my newly installed stove, and ate a hearty breakfast. I doused the aper with some of the removing fluid, so that it would have time to work while I was gone. Magic puzzle or no magic puzzle, I had to have a pce to live, and having the aper half off would drive me crazy. Then I got in my truck to pick up a new load of things, some for the house, and a few for the crypt project. I wao preserve the bolts if I could, so I brought some rust remover that might work if the oil hadn’t dohe job. In case that failed, I brought bolt cutters. I brought along my tall dder, too. It wouldn’t reach all the to the basement from the crypt, but I could do the st bit using the rope, and if I didn’t have to use Dimensioo get up, I’d save myself some major headaches — literally.

  I’d hit m rush hour traffi the way, but by suburban Washington, DC standards, it wasn’t too bad, and ourn trip I was going against traffic.

  I wasn’t any less curious when I got back, and I wasn’t any less nervous, either. The body transformation thing was weird. I’d never had any real questions about my gender identity. I was a man, and that was it. I knew for some people it wasn’t that straightforward, or that easy, and I respected that, but for me, it was simple. I had a man’s job, fixing up houses — not that a woman couldn’t do it, but it was stereotypically male work. I had a man’s body, buff enough that people asked me if I worked out, and were annoyed when I told them no, I just worked hard.

  What did it mean that I was turned on by having soft curves? Or for that matter, soft curves and a dick. What it probably meant was that I’d been turned on by curves all my life, and I shouldn’t worry about it. Maybe it was no big deal pared to being able to cast spells, being in a tomb with a whole unknown world outside, or having a pervy evil neancer in my head. Or maybe all those things were a big deal and it was hard to focus on any one of them.

  When I got home, I did a round of aper. The crypt had me curious, of course, but I khat handling a task well didn’t mean doing whatever struck my fancy most and ign the tasks I wished I didn’t have to do. The aper was decidedly in that tter category, a long task that had to be broken up into stages to be bearable, so I made myself work on it for an hour and then sprayed more remover.

  There was more stuff to do around the house, of course, stuff I’d been looking forward to. But I couldn’t put it off any longer. I went down to the basement with the dder, and then came back up to get a crowbar, the bolt cutter, and the spray of rust remover. I stashed them in my backpack, although the crowbar and the bolt cutter stuck out a bit.

  I put the dder on the puzzle and then crawled out with the rope. Grabbing the rope, I lowered myself slowly halfway through the puzzle and stopped. I still felt male when I was half in and half out. I grabbed the dder a myself slide down some. As soon as I was mostly oher side of the puzzle, I transformed. The dder came with, and then gravity took over and wre out of my hand. I thought it might stop then, half in and half out, sihings I tossed on the puzzle didn’t gh but things I carried did, but apparently it still ted as carried, and it cttered oone floor. Steel on stone is pretty loud, and that tomb echoed.

  I let myself down the rope a up the dder. What I should have done, I suppose, was tie a rope to the dder so that it couldn’t fall, but I k was sturdy. Sure enough, it was fine.

  I checked my mana.

  Mana: 81/81

  So it all came back ht. That would make a big differen how I used my spells and abilities.

  I walked over to the door. I tried to move the bolts, but they still weren’t budging. I tapped on them with the crowbar, but still nothing. It didn’t surprise me too much, because everything looked very old and there was a lot of rust. I was tempted to go ahead and use the bolt cutters, because I was impatient, but as long as the bolts were ihing could e through the door to me, either. So I tried the rust remover. It had a narrow pstic straw that helped me squirt the stuff into tight pces, and I took five minutes making sure it got everywhere that might help.

  I looked around the crypt. I wondered if I should just drop everything to take care of this, but at least at the moment there wasn’t that much I could do. The crypt was musty, and could use a good vacuuming, and probably in the long run some mold remediation, but right now I o wait for the rust remover to do its magic.

  So I climbed up the dder, hoisted myself the st few feet hand over hand on the rope, transformed again, a about my inal pn for the day. I sahe floor in one of the bedrooms. Fortunately, I’d dohat sort of thing a huimes, because my mind wasn’t really on it.

  I couldn’t sell the house unless I could move the puzzle. A gate to another world was too iing to give up, unless I couldn’t get out of the crypt. If I didn’t sell the house, I’d have no source of ine. I had some savings, but I had no iher than flipping. Maybe I could buy a sed house with a hefty me and work on flipping that, but that was plicated, too. With are time? Besides, the me payments would make my margin razor thin.

  How much would someone pay for a house with a portal to another world in it? Probably millions, and they also probably wouldn’t care whether the kit furnishings were updated, or the aper was half-peeled. I would be set for life if I found the right buyer, but if wot out the gover might take my house away for nothing, too. And anyway, I didn’t fix up houses to make money. I couldn’t afford to do it if I didn’t make money off it, of course, but what I loved about doing it was that I added value. I made the house better than it had been and then sold it to someone who didn’t have my skills or the time to remodel a fixer-upper themselves. It might be small, but it was my way of making the world a better pce.

  Getting rich wouldn’t ge all that. I’d still go on doing what I was doing, with maybe some people to help me. That would involve being a manager, and I’d been offered that kind of job before and tur down. It’d be a little bit better being my own boss, but I’d probably want to get my hands dirty and do the work myself anyway. No, millions would ge my life some, but what I loved was a good project, and the crypt was the most iing project I’d have in a lifetime.

  I did another round with the aper and the back to the basement.

  With help from the crowbar, the top bolt budged from the wall. I was surprised at how strong my lithe form was, because it required quite a bit of leverage. Once I got it to move some, I worked the rust off and slid it over. The middle bolt, however, still resisted.

  Enash said that magic had kept him in, so the bolts were desigo keep other people out. But they could only be thrown from this side, so who bolted them? Unless, I supposed, they were thrown magically, in which case someone might be able to undo them magically, too.

  Enash expected there to be guards oher side. Maybe I should buy a gun. I’d shot one a few times in Boy Scouts, but it was a small caliber rifle, probably a .22, and I certainly was no expert. If I saw trouble I could always teleport away if I o, but I couldn’t stop anyone from ing through the door I just opened, and that would essentially let them into my home. My heart beat a little faster at the idea of getting into a fight. I was iy good shape from all the manual bor I did, and most people would back down from me if it came to it. That had e in handy in a few situations in bars over the years, but I rarely had to actually throunch. In futa form, though, I was a lot less intimidating, even if it seemed I was every bit as strong.

  I could use Life Drain. It sounded nasty, but I wasn’t sure it was any worse than a bullet. And a gun, if the people oher side had never seen one before, wouldn’t serve as a threat. It might kill someone, and have the element of surprise, but it wouldn’t help resolve something peacefully. I didn’t want to shoot i guards. Nothing I’d seen in the crypt, including the bolts, couldn’t have been made ih tury or even earlier, but I didn’t know how long Enash had been there.

  There were too many maybes. I couldn’t pn this like a house restoration. So I reattached the upper and lower bolts, and then cut the middle oh the bolt cutter. I’d made plenty of noise if someone had been listening oher side, so I figured I might as well try to unicate. “Hello? Hello out there?”

  No answer. Maybe they didn’t speak my nguage. Then again, I could uand Enash just fine, ahe system dispy.

  The soprano of my voice reminded me of another problem. I was used to dealing with people as, well, something of a bro. Who knows, maybe on this world Abel was a girl’s name, but I wasn’t betting on it. Abby, maybe?

  Abby the neancer. Well, I didn’t have to tell people about the necro part.

  Taking a deep breath, I undid the bolts and opehe door.